


Who We Can Save

by forgivenessishardforus



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Angst, Comfort, F/M, Season/Series 04, Speculative fiction, canonverse, platonic handholding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-07
Updated: 2017-02-07
Packaged: 2018-09-22 18:04:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,018
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9618986
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/forgivenessishardforus/pseuds/forgivenessishardforus
Summary: The slaves have disappeared inside the Ark but Bellamy’s gaze is still focused on the spot where they had last been. “I blew it up,” he says, a wariness in his voice. “We created a distraction, drew the attention of the warriors to it. Then we blew it up.”Even though he’s not looking at them perhaps he can sense their appalled gazes, because he turns back to them with a determined jaw and steely eyes. “They were innocent. I couldn’t let them—”“You blew up the hydrogenerator to save them?” Clarke whispers in horror. “Bellamy, we can’t save them. And now we might not be able to save ourselves!”





	

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place at the end of 4.02/beginning of 4.03. Minor spoiler warning for speculation on the hard decisions Bellamy and Clarke have to make, and the potential fallout. It is all pure speculation though, and doesn't contain any info that hasn't already been given to us in teasers and trailers!

She waits at the gates of Arkadia for Bellamy and the others to return, pacing anxiously back and forth while she watches the sun sink lower in the sky.

Bellamy had radioed in early that morning with a brief message—”We didn’t get the hydrogenerator, we’re on our way back”—but had been reluctant to share any details, and the radio had been silent ever since. 

They should’ve been back by now. There’s a growing dread in her stomach, one that overtakes the rage and hopelessness that had been shaking in her fingertips since she had Raven had made their hard choice earlier that day: to prioritize the lives of those who would be of the most use in ensuring the survival of the human race. Doctors, engineers, scientists—they would be given more rations, clean water, medical treatments. And those deemed nonessential would be left to die. 

It’s how things had been on the Ark, and a part of her knows that that draconian way of living is what had kept them alive; but she had hoped they could do better down here. She had been counting on it. 

And without the hydrogenerator—how many more would they have to cut from the list?

It was a worry that would wait until Bellamy got back— _ if _ he got back, because the sun was touching the tops of the trees and it had been almost twelve hours, now, since she’d last heard from him. 

She brings her fist to her mouth and bites down hard on her knuckles, pretends that it’s this pain that brings stinging tears to her eyes. 

Logically, she knows she should be inside with Raven, doing everything they can do to prepare for what’s coming, because they don’t have any time to spare. Logically, she knows that those guarding the camp would radio them if they saw the rover approaching, knows that her eyes have no advantage over those who patrol the walls, especially as the light fades away. But she can’t force her feet to do anything but tread the same ten foot path in front of the gates. 

When night has almost completely fallen, the sky a dusky indigo dusted with stars, there comes a shout. “Party approaching!” a voice calls from the top of the watchtower, and she stands in complete stillness—so at odds with how she had been moments before—as the gates slide open, tries to regulate her breathing because the air feels caught in her throat. Time seems to slow to an excruciating pace as she waits, until at last the headlights of the rover break through the trees and the vehicle rumbles down the path and through the gates. 

She sees Bellamy’s familiar silhouette behind the wheel and runs towards him as he opens the door and steps out, stopping just short of throwing her arms around him. 

“What took you so long?” she demands as soon as he turns his attention to her. “Why didn’t you radio?”

“This is why,” he says grimly, and for the first time she notices how tight the skin around his eyes is, how his mouth is dragging down at the corners. Miller gets out the passenger door and walks to the back of the rover; she follows as Bellamy does the same. 

She doesn’t know what to expect as they open the back doors, but it isn’t this: people crushed into the small space like garbage in the trash compactor back on the Ark, their eyes hollow, hair tangled, faces bruised and bloody. A lot of them look lost, their gaze unfocused, and it takes Miller’s outstretched hand and kind words to get them moving, crawling out of the back of the rover and standing on uncertain, shaking legs outside. 

“Monty, Harper, and Bryan stayed behind,” Bellamy says, just as Raven arrives. “With the rest of them.”

“The rest of them?” Raven exclaims, taking in the bedraggled group with a sweeping look. 

Bellamy nods, jaw set firmly. “We’ll go back for them in the morning. They have tents, and guns; they should be fine.”

“Bellamy—” Raven begins exasperatedly, but Clarke cuts her off.

“Bellamy, what happened? Why did you bring these people here?”

Bellamy watches as Miller leads the group of people towards the Ark, most likely heading for the mess hall, before responding. “They were slaves,” he says. “To a group of Azgeda warriors. We watched as they were chained up, beaten, dragged through the snow—” He swallows, face hardening. “I had to save them.”

“What about the hydrogenerator?” Raven asks. 

The slaves have disappeared inside the Ark but Bellamy’s gaze is still focused on the spot where they had last been. “I blew it up,” he says, a wariness in his voice. “We created a distraction, drew the attention of the warriors to it. Then we blew it up.”

Even though he’s not looking at them perhaps he can sense their appalled gazes, because he turns back to them with a determined jaw and steely eyes. “They were innocent. I couldn’t let them—”

“You blew up the hydrogenerator to save them?” Clarke whispers in horror. “Bellamy, we  _ can’t _ save them. And now we might not be able to save ourselves!” Despair wells up within her—she can taste its salt on her tongue—and she blinks her eyes rapidly before it can spill over. 

“What do you mean?” Bellamy asks, going suddenly still, his gaze focused intently on her. 

She only shakes her head, unable to put it into words; all she can see is the damn list they haven’t yet written, the dozen more names they’ll need to condemn in order to keep the human race alive, yet more people who will die by her hand. 

Now that Bellamy has returned, it seems, that hopeless rage is back; she vibrates with it, teeth clenched until they hurt, hands curled into fists and nails biting into her palms. Leave Raven to explain—it had been her idea anyway—

Without uttering a word Clarke spins on her heel towards the Ark, her pace quickening to a jog and then to a run as she gives into the desperate desire to escape this. 

She skids into her room, slams the door behind her with a metallic crash, sweeps everything off the desk with one frantic, erratic movement of her arm, then looks around for something else to throw, but the room is empty. 

Suddenly sapped of anger, she sinks down onto the edge of her bed and buries her face in her hands, unable to stop the torrent of tears that leaks out through her fingers. It’s too early to give up hope—objectively, she knows that—but it seems that every time they find something to hold onto, it slips out of their grasp.

The door to the room opens, then closes. She knows it’s him without raising her head from her hands. 

“I’m sorry, Clarke.” There’s real regret and pain in his voice. “But I couldn’t leave them there to die. I can’t do that anymore.” She can’t be angry at him, not when Bellamy had always struggled with doing the right thing, had been battling demons over those they had lost for as long as she had known him.

“I understand. It’s just—” She lifts her head to look at him, takes note of the exhaustion and sorrow in his face. “Did Raven tell you what we learned?”

He shakes his head. “She knew better than to talk about it in front of the others. I gather it’s not good?”

Her head bows beneath an invisible weight, and she feels more tears spring into her eyes. “We have six months before the Earth becomes uninhabitable, but only one month—maybe less—before we lose our water supply. Animals, too, are going to die, or become too infected for us to eat.”

“So we’ll starve before we burn,” Bellamy says, a curious lack of emotion in his voice, an ironic twist to his lips.

“Maybe. Unless—” The words stick in her throat, too horrible to be spoken aloud, and she forces them out with effort. “Raven thinks that we could figure out ways to survive the radiation, if we’re given enough time. If we prioritize supplies, make sure that those important to our survival stay fed—”

“Clarke—”

She looks down at her hands hanging limply in her lap, unable to face any recrimination in his gaze. “It’s like the Ark all over again,” she whispers. 

“And how do we decide? Who lives and who dies?”

“A list.” She pushes the words out through a blockage in her throat. “We save the engineers, the mechanics, the chemists first. Then the doctors, the farmers. Then—”

“What about us?” he asks, and she only shakes her head. She knows she plans on doing everything she can to make sure his name is on the list—and Octavia’s, if she can—but as for herself—

“So I brought these people back here, and we’re just going to let them die anyway.”

“If I could save everyone, I would—” she begins, but he’s not listening; the words aren’t meant as a judgement against her, but against himself. 

“I blew up the hydrogenerator, I destroyed something that could have helped us survive, and the people I did it for are going to die anyway.”

“You did what you had to do.”

“That’s not good enough. Not anymore.” His hands are balled in tight fists at his side, his head turned away, refusing to meet her eyes. 

“Sometimes,” she says softly, “after everything we’ve done, you need to do what you think is right. You find that line that you’re not willing to cross. And that’s okay.”

He swallows hard, blinking rapidly, and after a second looks at her, his eyes wet and dark and sad. “Even if it kills us?”

“We don’t know that it will,” she says as reassuringly as she can muster. “We don’t know that the hydrogenerator would have saved us. We don’t know what the fate of these people will be. We don’t know what we’ll come up with to save us.” He doesn’t look reassured, so she repeats his words from the day before back at him: “We save who we can save today.” And then, managing the ghost of a smile, she adds, “And we save them again tomorrow.”

“Or we kill them,” he mutters, echoing the dark recesses of her own thoughts, and her fragile facade crumbles. A hollow sob escapes her. 

“Commanders of death,” she whispers. “We can’t seem to escape its shadow.”

“Maybe one day we will,” Bellamy says, this time trying to reassure her. “It gives us something to work towards.” There’s that little twist to his lips again, something that almost resembles a smile, and she feels her own lips twist in response. 

“Do you still have hope?” she asks. “I mean, do you  _ actually _ ?”

There’s a long, long pause before he answers: “Are we still breathing?”

It’s not really an answer to her question, and yet those four words contain all the answer she needs; after all, when it came to them it had never really been about having hope. It had been about never giving up. Not while they still lived. 

HIs hand lands on her shoulder, a comforting weight, and it takes her a moment to register it before she raises her own hand to cover his—holding him there, a silent plea asking him not to leave—and drops her cheek so it rests on her skin. 

Just the warmth and closeness of him sends calm trickling through her, seeping through her muscles until some of the tension releases. Gently, she entwines their fingers and tugs him down to sit beside her, and then rests her head on his shoulder. After a moment, she feels the top of his head brush hers. 

“We are today,” she affirms. “And we will be tomorrow.”

“Then we don’t give up,” he says, his voice vibrating through the top of her head and down to her toes. “Not while we yet live.”

**Author's Note:**

> AS ALWAYS, comments are always very appreciated!


End file.
